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I think a lot of people don't have any idea of how deeply segregated our schools have become all over again. Most textbooks are not honest in what they teach our high school students.

An awful lot of people come to college with this strange idea that there's no longer segregation in America's schools, that our schools are basically equal; neither of these things is true.

Racial segregation has come back to public education with a vengeance.

The segregated schools of today are arguably no more equal than the segregated schools of the past.

We demand that segregation be ended in every school district in the year 1963! We demand that we have effective civil rights legislation - no compromise, no filibuster - and that include public accommodations, decent housing, integrated education, FEPC and the right to vote.

We're now segregating our schools based on economics; we're segregating our schools based on where a child's parents live. And it has the same corrosive effect of destroying people's opportunity as racial segregation did.

Sixty years after Brown v. Board of Education, it's time for us to take a hard look at the separate and unequal conditions that still exist in our schools and our communities and rededicate ourselves to fulfilling the promise of equal opportunity for all.

Progress for black Americans depends on good schools because education is the last great equalizer.

As somebody who visits countless schools, I see firsthand the dire situation our educational system faces.

And I think that we in America need to understand that many schools need improvement, and particularly with respect to how they're serving minority children.